Narratives Of Grief Research Articles

When Grief Arrives: An oral history of grief and death within queer, trans and Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities

When Grief Arrives is a narrative therapy and oral history project aimed at re-storying narratives of grief and loss within queer, trans and Black, Indigenous and people of colour communities. The project documents multi-storied accounts of grief that resist the individualisation and isolation of grieving that is common under settler colonialism and capitalism. By honouring overlooked landscapes of experience, the project seeks to generate solidarity and interconnection through shared knowledges. This article discusses the project’s methodology, ethical considerations, and the transformative potential of collective storytelling in fostering solidarity and healing within marginalised communities.

Proposing a new history of grief's medicalisation: A critical discourse analysis.

Conceptualisations of grief have transformed significantly in recent decades, from an experience accepted and expressed in community spaces to a diagnosable clinical phenomenon. Narratives of this transformation tend to focus on grief's relationship to major depression, or on recent nosological changes. This paper examines the possibility of a new narrative for medicalisation by grounding in the networks of language and power created around 'grief' through a critical discourse analysis of psy-discipline articles (n=70) published between 1975 and 1995. Focusing on shifts in definitions of, methods used to approach, and rationales motivating study of the experience, it posits that the psy-disciplines exerted exclusive expertise over grief decades before its creation as a diagnosis. By reconceptualising grief in the terms of psy-specific symptoms and functional performance and by approaching it with the decontextualising and interventionist methods of an increasingly scientific psy-discipline, the psy-community medicalised grief between 1975 and 1995. Identifying neoliberal and other cultural influences shaping this process of medical construction and reconsidering narratives of grief's history mindful of the powers exerted in medicalisation, this paper establishes that these moments played a critical role in the development of the present's grief.

Gendered Narratives of Grief for a Fallen Soldier in a Course of the Russian Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine as Expressed Online

This article explores gendered narratives of grief for fallen servicemen and women in the course of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine after February, 24 2022. While the public image of a soldier typically represents a plethora of traditionally masculine features, the public nature of the private grief in the age of digitalization challenges this image. Moreover, a rather significant participation of women in combat roles adds to the distortion of the traditional expressions of grief in a public space. Another prominent factor is the sheer scale of invasion and the proximity of the soldiers to the civilians, which forges the bonds of micro-solidarities and changes the perception of the military. Drawing on the narrative analysis of the public expressions of grief in the social media, this text explores how the decentralization of grief granted by the social media and the changed demographical landscape among the soldiers are echoed in the process of mourning online.
 This article focuses solely on the death of the soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the volunteers who died as the result of the military action and does not touch upon the death of Russian servicemen and/or deaths of the soldiers and volunteers that occurred beyond the combat zone and military action.

Untitled Grief: An Application of Heuristic Inquiry

In this presentation I investigate the methods and tools enmeshed in the creation of the short hybrid animated documentary Untitled Grief (Hoyle, 2023). Untitled Grief is one film of a suite of films which are being produced for a practice-led doctoral study (Smith & Dean, 2009). The films seek to document and visualise the human phenomena of loss in order to answer the question: How might a documentary filmmaker heighten resonance in narratives of grief through the use of animated images and sound? The project is underpinned by heuristic inquiry (Moustakas, 1990). Heuristic inquiry bolsters my examination of loss through tapping into autobiographical narratives as a way to uncover meaning while sustaining the focused search to expand the investigation. Potential is released to reveal universal significance of the phenomenon being explored. This type of inquiry is flexible, open and immersive. Tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1967) is extracted and utilised. The researcher is guided by phases beginning with a focused initial encounter with the topic or question. Heuristic inquiry suggests a system of phases which guides the researcher throughout the research path. As an adaptation to this methodology and being led by practice, a series of principles of engagement have emerged; embracing uncertainty as a tool for creativity; utilising serendipity as a structured occurrence, emboldening the researcher’s poetic self; returning to indwelling with creative projects; aroha (love, respect, empathy) at the core of research practice.

“You Know There’s No ‘It’ Right? ‘It’ Was Just Us”

“You Know There’s No ‘It’ Right? ‘It’ Was Just Us”

The Last Enemy: Reading Harry Potter as an Extended Grief Narrative

Abstract: J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is renowned for its magical story about adventure, friendship, and love, drawing extensively from the school story and bildungsroman literary traditions. However, the novels are most significantly, as the author herself states, focused on death, and therefore, offer a larger narrative of profound grief. Drawing from both literary and psychological studies, this article examines Harry's emotional growth as he experiences and copes with loss. It argues that Harry's grief narrative can be a source of bibliotherapy to readers as they navigate their own real-life trauma and bereavement.

Tragedy does not die: Creativity, emotions, and metaphor of revolution in the context of Chinese Revolutionary Drama

The decline of tragedy is one of the greatest tragedies of modernity. While many scholars exclaim that tragedy has been dead, Raymond Williams points out that it is not an eternal metaphysical event, but is plural and dynamic, a series of experiences, a tradition. Williams’ rethinking of tragedy provides a historical perspective on the cultural meanings. What matters are the traditions, emotions, and experiences of the time in which the tragedy is set, and the superimposed series of accidents and imbalances that create this type of tragic experience. That is, tragedy is not a static narrative of grief, but a textual creativity. This article will examine this argument in the context of Chinese Revolutionary Drama. The White-Haired Girl (Bai Mao Nv) is a famous tragedy born a hundred years ago in China that depicts the tragic fate of the poor. During the Communist Revolution, it was adapted by the propaganda department of the Communist Party as a tragedy of class oppression and extended to the whole country as a symbol of emotional mobilization. After 1978, the tragedy was forgotten as an outdated revolutionary legacy. However, the experience and texts of the The White-Haired Girl are still active in Chinese social networks today. This complex process is not only historical but also emotional. The aims of this article are the following: (1) to reveal the constructive relationship between creativity, revolution, and emotion; (2) to present the process of interconstruction between tragedy as context and tragedy as metaphor for revolution; and (3) to place creativity in the context of specific cultural and historical changes and observe its dynamic significance.

Family narratives of loss and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic in Botswana

ABSTRACT This study explores and documents the processes of loss and grief among families who have lost relatives due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Gaborone city, Botswana. In-person and online in-depth interviews were used to collect data from 15 families and a key informant, selected using the non-probability technique of purposive sampling. Participant observation was also used as a method of data collection. We discovered that dealing with the processes of loss and grief has been restructured due to the pandemic, as there was limited to no interaction with the general public on the one hand, and funerals were short and less crowded on the other. Consequently, these changes have affected the aftermath as well as the mourning process of the concerned families. In addition, the study revealed that the concerned families and households were negatively affected by the untimely passing of their relative, and the short mourning days made it even harder for them to say goodbye properly. For remaining family members, it was difficult to grieve due to the lack of support from extended family members who were also affected by the pandemic. As they felt left out, the experience seems to have perpetuated mental health problems. Given the significance of COVID-19 in the history of humankind, documenting the experience of loss and grief in times of pandemic is a necessity, as it highlights various socio-cultural responses to the death of family members.

Performing Processions: Premonitions and palimpsests

Aligning historic modes of public performance and participation with anthropological theory that questions the hegemony of Western linear notions of time, this article considers processional performance as a way of looking forwards and back simultaneously through analysis of two case studies of work. Blast Theory's Spit Spreads Death: The Parade (2019), a performance procession including interactive light and sound, took place on the streets of Philadelphia acting as a memorial and celebration of the 20,000 lives that were lost in the city during the Spanish flu epidemic 101 years ago to the day on the 28 September after the Liberty Loan Parade. Six months later, the most deadly virus in living memory, the COVID-19 pandemic, spread around the world and Blast Theory's performance procession seemed to be not only a memorial of the lives lost in the previous epidemic, but a premonition of what was to come. Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke's installation The Procession (2022) snaked around the marble columns of the Duveen gallery at Tate Britain London. Described by Laura Cumming as a procession of the ‘never-ending theatre of humanity’ (2022), this installation of over 150 figures leading towards a pavilion adorned with images of colonial buildings in Guyana both encapsulates and performs a palimpsest of stories of slavery, migration and the movement of people. Rebecca Schneider suggests that it is in the future that our pasts await us: our responses, revisions, or refusals (2018). Analysing these two examples of artworks of premonition and palimpsest, this article argues that processional performance can disrupt linear temporal narratives and memorialize in a way that expands and complicates narratives of sadness, remembering and grief.

Examination of children’s grief experiences through storytelling-based systemic intervention: Case study

This study explored the experiences of children whose parents died and who were in the mourning process through storytelling-based systemic intervention. The study employed the multiple case study design and the study group consisted of six children aged 7–12 years attending elementary and middle schools in Van, Turkey. The criterion sampling method was used to form the study group. The criteria for participating in the study were the child being between the ages of 7–12, the child losing one of the parents, the child having psychological support request from the school psychological counseling service for him/her, and the child losing his/her mother or father at least six months before the study. The semi-structured interview method was used to collect data in the study since storytelling-based systemic intervention developed for this study includes distinct stages, questions to be directed to the counselee at each stage, and steps that can be flexible according to the counselee’s situation. 11 interviews were held with each child regularly every week. These interviews aimed to understand what the children experience regarding grief through the “storytelling-based systemic intervention”. The study data were analyzed by deductive content analysis and qualitative comparative analysis. What the children experienced during the intervention was presented based on the therapeutic unique experiences of White and Epston (1990), who emphasized narrative therapy and social constructs. Under the general category of “emotional constructions regarding the past unique outcomes”, various subcategories were formed, namely “emotional oscillations between life/death”, “experiencing many emotions together during the grief process”, “the revealing of injuries associated with losses and the responsive change of hurt”, “feeling sensitivity towards the surviving parent”, “feeling hurt by others about parental loss”, “feeling empathetic towards people experiencing similar grief narratives” and “revealing unfinished emotions with the dead”.

Agents of change in bushfire recovery: Young people's acts of citizenship in a youth-focused, animal-welfare and environmental program

Bushfires and natural hazard disasters have a significant impact on young people and risk reduction strategies have largely focused on addressing their vulnerability and mitigating the effects of trauma. In the 21st century practitioners, researchers and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, are calling for young people to become ‘agents of change’ in disaster management. When young people are included in disaster management there are benefits for themselves, their peers, community and the environment at local, state and national levels. Our program, with young people affected by Australia's 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires, highlighted their frustrations at the limited opportunities to be actively involved in relief and recovery, and their concerns about the combined impact of the climate crisis and bushfires. Their focus aligns with a shift in young people's acts of citizenship and community involvement as they seek opportunities to engage with issues that impact them and their future.Young people's engagement in a youth-focused, empowerment-oriented, animal-welfare program in the Australian state of Victoria, The Activators, demonstrates how young people join the dots between bushfire recovery, the climate crisis and environmental issues to undertake local acts of citizenship. This article focuses on young people's experiences and a young person's powerful narrative of Loss, urgency, grief and loneliness. We draw on the challenges and opportunities of young people's individual and collective experience of the program. Our analysis investigates how a programmatic intervention empowered young people to become agents of change through acts of citizenship in their local communities. Adopting similar approaches would enable young people to be actively involved in disaster, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, across all levels of planning and community engagement.

Drawing on grief: Adapting heuristic inquiry in a practice led thesis

In this presentation, I consider the role and the nature of heurisitic inquiry in the creation of hybrid documentaries. These hybrid documentary artefacts combine interviews, observational video and various applications of animation to translate the narratives of grief into visual and sonic stories. In this research study, it is the grief we experience due to the loss of a loved one which is investigated. I am positioned as an ‘inside researcher’ (Kirpitchenko & Voloder, 2014) who examines a question that is both personally significant and existential. Using a heuristic inquiry through a self-investigation, a self-dialogue and a reflection, I build on my knowledge about the understanding of loss. This presentation uses my initial case studies of a practice-led inquiry to examine how a heuristic inquiry can be employed to enable a documentary maker to navigate internal pathways of the self, while interpreting other people’s shared, reflective narratives of grief. I will demonstrate how a heuristic inquiry can activate plasticity in exploration and heighten the potentials for discovery in the pursuit of a creative practice. Building on Wood’s (2004) assertion that heuristics is more concerned with discovery than the pursuit of proof, this research study considers a heuristic inquiry as a conceptual framework (Douglass & Moustakas, 1990), that engages intuitive questioning which enables similarities, analogies or homologies to surface while artistic data is being generated (Kleining and Witt, 2000). In the session, four novel processes of heuristic engagement will be discussed: maintaining a consciously poetic sensibility that embraces the vulnerability of the practitioner whilst protecting the interviewee; extending periods of indwelling and reflection on the artefacts produced; practicing aroha (showing consideration, connection, love and respect); and pursuing and embracing serendipity as a means of enhancing the possibilities for discovery and novel approaches to practice.

The Function of Liminal Entities in the Grief Process of Young Adult Contemporary Novels

Liminality is a state of existing between, in which the subject is not inhabiting one particular space or another. In the context of contemporary young adult grief narratives, the liminality of the deceased characters allows them to transcend death in order to communicate with the narrator, literally or figuratively, and shape the narrative. The deceased, referred to in this article as the liminal entity, has an impact on the narrative through reflection on the past, troubles in the present, and a loss of representation in the future. This article examines the presence of liminal entities in three young adult grief narratives: <em>Long Way Down</em> (2018) by Jason Reynolds, <em>Goodbye Days</em> (2017) by Jeff Zentner, and <em>A Short History of the Girl Next Door</em> (2017) by Jared Reck.

Where Are They Now: The Narratives of Children Who Lost a Parent on 9/11.

There is a paucity of literature examining the experiences of children who lost a parent on 9/11. The primarily quantitative research has not allowed for a deeper understanding of how children who lost a parent on 9/11 make meaning of their experiences, especially in the context of a national tragedy. This study investigates how eight children who were between the ages of 5 and 12 when they lost a parent on 9/11 developed a personal narrative about this loss in the context of the collective narrative about 9/11. Using narrative inquiry, cases demonstrated patterns of narrative development about grief, tragedy, and collective themes of American exceptionalism, patriotism, triumph, and resiliency. These cases highlight de-personalized narratives of grief, tension between the grand narrative provided to them and their personal story of loss, and distance between the reality of their loss and the collective meaning-making of the tragedy. This study extends Bronfenbrenner's (1977) ecological systems theory by highlighting how a lack of bidirectionality between larger social and cultural systems and the individual negatively impacts personal experiences of grief and loss.

Exploring the Effects of the Human–Animal Relationship on Care-Farms in the Context of Trauma Histories

ABSTRACT This qualitative study explored the effects of human–animal relationships on care-farms, with specific attention to the context of trauma histories. We questioned how the interpretative act and belief in identifying shared narratives of prior suffering could change how people relate to their own narratives of trauma and grief and to animals. Drawing on a study of grieving individuals’ experiences on a care-farm providing support and psychoeducation to individuals who have experienced traumatic grief, we present the results of an in-depth qualitative survey. As part of the study, participants were asked to reflect on whether it was important that the service-provider’s model included helping rescue animals: 91% answered affirmatively. Participants were invited to expand discursively why, or why not, this had been meaningful to them. Our results show that participants assigned benefits from personally identifying a “shared narrative” of trauma with the animals, that witnessing a level of rehabilitation and resilience in animals with trauma histories was meaningful for participants for their own integration of grief, and that being able to contribute “care” for animals provided a mechanism for compassionate practice. Our findings suggest that animals with loss and trauma biographies may provide unique and unexpected psychological benefits to humans facing grief and trauma. We are not suggesting that animals who have a traumatic past have an inherent capacity for providing salutary benefit or that such animals should be engaged to provide therapeutic opportunities. Rather, we emphasize the importance of narrative and how such narratives change how participants relate to, and interact with, animals. Our research serves as an important reminder that “therapy animals” are living beings with their own life histories and experiences. Careful thought needs to be given when working with animals in a therapeutic context in order to protect both vulnerable humans and animals.

Rock Star Dreams Co-created (auto)ethnographies

The article is a two-part piece where the first part is a narratively written composition of interview excerpts, and the second part is a theoretical and methodological reflection about this way of writing. The narrative of the first part consists of extracts from in-depth interviews conducted within the framework of an ethnological and autoethnographical re- search project examining grief, friendship and kinship in the wake of the deaths of two of the authors childhood friends – Marcus and Noel. The potential of the ethnographic material is explored as text by compiling it in an entirely new manner, where multiple voices are condensed into a single narrative. The point of departure is sociologist Carolyn Ellis’ ideas on co-constructed narratives and autoethnographic texts as jointly authored. The writing method is also inspired by author Svetlana Alexievich and her way of facilitating a focus on specific details of human experience from a larger empirical material. The intention is that the whole should appear to be greater than the sum of its parts. The common narrative is something new, something singular, something greater than could be conveyed by any one of the interviews, or interviewees, alone. The result is a narrative of death, grief, friendship, parenthood and kinship. About how masculinity can be intersected by the lines of class, place, mental illness and substance abuse. In the text, those who grieve for Marcus and Noel are not alone – in the text they stand together as part of a heterogeneous collective with many voices.

Therapists’ Experiences of Self-Transcendence: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

This study examines how seven counselors and psychotherapists in Aotearoa New Zealand made sense of their self-transcendent experiences (STE), and discussed how they see these experiences influencing their therapeutic approaches. The term “self-transcendent experience” is defined as a short-lived peak event that achieves a perceived connection beyond one’s sense of self, which can be difficult to describe in words. It is assumed that when STE occurs in the lives of psychologically healthy individuals, its aftermath is associated with increased well-being. Applying interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to seven semi-structured interviews, this study attempts to make interpretative sense of how participants understand transcendent phenomena. Results point to an interplay between participants’ perceived meaning of STE and its context, defined as the confluence of interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics of lived experience preceding, during, and following the event. Participants couch ineffable phenomena of STE within more communicable narratives of grief and loss, shifting identity, struggling with insecurity, and undergoing transformational growth. Findings point to the role of intuitive states during therapy, where participants receive “pictures or sensations” and “pings of information.” Some participants reported sensing deep connection with clients, suggesting states of relational depth during therapy might be conceived of as low-key STE.

Narrative Retellings: Stylistic Approaches

Narrative Retellings: Stylistic Approaches

African American funeral directors as culture keepers: an interview with Karla Holloway

ABSTRACT An interview conducted with Emeritus professor Karla Holloway on the African American funeral director as preservers of culture and history illuminates her scholarship and importance to the field of Death Studies. Questions asked in order to understand her interdisciplinary academic background and her canonical book Passed On: African American Mourning Stories, A Memorial were received with answers on how her knowledge of language and letters provide important understandings of death and dying in broad and heterogenous African American communities. Holloway shared her own personal grief narratives and how they inform her work by disclosing her purposeful and continual use of the term ‘Vilomah’ which she borrowed from Sanskit as a way to bring comfort to those who have lost a child. Ultimately, the interview showcases how premature loss in African American communities, inclusive to children and adults, lead to creative and distinctive rituals and memorial work – work born of trauma and pain but also resistance and resilience.

The Pure Lover and the mature mourner: The literary expression of grief in David Plante’s memoir and its cultural, educational, and therapeutic significance

ABSTRACT Among multiple grief narratives published in recent decades, The Pure Lover: A Memoir of Grief (2009) by David Plante stands out in its self-reflective and nonnormative approach to grief. Focusing on same-gender partner bereavement, this qualitative study explores the following areas: (1) the cultural, supportive, and egalitarian functions of the arts in The Pure Lover; (2) select grief approaches in the context of Plante’s memoir to illustrate and verify those approaches; and (3) the memoir as a cost-effective educational and bibliotherapeutic aid for those who support, care for, and work with older LGBTIQ+ grievers. Based on lived experience, grief memoirs, a sub-genre of life writing, constitute longitudinal narrative case studies. As such, they can help deconstruct normative viewpoints and promote the cultural significance of the arts in grief support; provide scholars with verifiable literary data to update bereavement concepts and theories, especially in such underexplored areas as bereavement in older LGBTIQ+ adults; boost a more ethical and inclusive approach to grief-stricken patients and clients; and provide a low-triggering bibliotherapeutic tool in bereavement.